t to have authorised
themselves to live for ever, as to make their authority live for ever.
All, therefore, that can be said of those clauses is that they are a
formality of words, of as much import as if those who used them had
addressed a congratulation to themselves, and in the oriental style of
antiquity had said: O Parliament, live for ever!

The circumstances of the world are continually changing, and the
opinions of men change also; and as government is for the living, and
not for the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it.
That which may be thought right and found convenient in one age may be
thought wrong and found inconvenient in another. In such cases, who is
to decide, the living or the dead?

As almost one hundred pages of Mr. Burke's book are employed upon these
clauses, it will consequently follow that if the clauses themselves, so
far as they set up an assumed usurped dominion over posterity for ever,
are unauthoritative, and in their nature null and void; that all his
voluminous inferences, and declamation drawn therefrom, or founded
thereon, are null and void also; and on this ground I rest the matter.

We now come more particularly to the affairs of France. Mr. Burke's book
has the appearance of being written as instruction to the French nation;
but if I may permit myself the use of an extravagant metaphor, suited
to the extravagance of the case, it is darkness attempting to illuminate
light.

While I am writing this there are accidentally before me some proposals
for a declaration of rights by the Marquis de la Fayette (I ask his
pardon for using his former address, and do it only for distinction's
sake) to the National Assembly, on the 11th of July, 1789, three
days before the taking of the Bastille, and I cannot but remark with
astonishment how opposite the sources are from which that gentleman and
Mr. Burke draw their principles. Instead of referring to musty records
and mouldy parchments to prove that the rights of the living are lost,
"renounced and abdicated for ever," by those who are now no more, as
Mr. Burke has done, M. de la Fayette applies to the living world,
and emphatically says: "Call to mind the sentiments which nature has
engraved on the heart of every citizen, and which take a new force when
they are solemnly recognised by all:--For a nation to love liberty, it
is sufficient that she knows it; and to be free, it is sufficient that
she wills it." How dry, barren, a